Sunday, December 28, 2014

Today we
celebrate the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph—the model family for
Christian families. Admittedly, they're a tough act to follow. None of us were
immaculately conceived or conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of a virgin.
However, they are the ideal not because their origination, but because of their
example of obedience and holiness.

Our
readings center on relationships in the family and the centrality of family in
the formation of character. Sirach confirms the authority of father and mother
but particularly emphasizes the father's role as the source of authority in the
family, as role modeled on our Heavenly Father. Sirach is one of the seven
books in the Catholic bible that are not included in the Hebrew Tanakh or the
Protestant Old Testament, which is a shame because it's a tremendous source of
wisdom.

St. Paul's
letter to the Colossians highlights the need to act with compassion, kindness,
and patience with everyone in our faith community, but he sets particular
emphasis on the relationships within the family. Many people don't care for the
language of submission that Paul uses here, but no one is getting off easy:
wives should submit to husbands; husbands should love their wives and hold no
bitterness; children should obey parents; husbands should act without
provocation toward children. If we did
act this way in our families, how different would our actions be toward those
who are not in our families? We're
often the worst to the people with whom we're closest. So Paul's emphasis here on
family is not by accident. The family is foundational for the proper raising of
children to live in society.

Paul uses the
language of self-sacrifice. He tells us to set aside our preferences and to do
what is best spiritually for others. And
his message is not a very popular one either—to set aside the self and to do
for others first. Yet to live and thrive in community requires us to hold some
things greater than our own personal desires and well being.

In Luke's
gospel, Joseph and Mary take Jesus to Jerusalem to present him at the temple,
an event that we commemorate in the Feast of the Presentation on February 2nd. Jews
were obligated to present first-born sons at the temple and to offer sacrifice.
We know that this family is poor because of the sacrifice itself—two
turtledoves or young pigeons. A wealthy family would be expected to sacrifice a
lamb and a dove. We get a glimpse in this gospel of what it meant to be a Jewish
family. They followed the prescribed feasts and fulfilled their obligations NOT
because it was easy or because it helped them financially but because they believed
that they owed it to God their creator—their Father—and they believed that it
demonstrated their love for Him. It was one of the 613 mitzvot or commandments that Jews fulfilled not solely out of obligation
but also out of love. Jesus castigated the Pharisees for stacking obligations
on top of the commandments, but he never condemned the simple performance of these
acts of love.

I want to
focus on one person in this narrative, the foster father of Jesus, Joseph. Joseph
utters not a single word in either infancy account in Luke or Matthew, but we
can gather that he is a righteous man who does what is best for his family.
When the angel tells him to set aside his fear and wed Mary, he does it without
hesitation. When the angel instructs him to flee to Egypt with his family, he
does it. Joseph is a man of action rather than words. He demonstrates his
fidelity by what he does, not by making dramatic speeches. That should be a
lesson for all of us fathers. Our actions do far more to shape the character of
our children than our words.

The family
is the brick from which the foundation of civilization in built. The Church
calls the family, in paragraph 1656 of the Catechism,
the ecclesia domestica—the domestic
church. It is the primary place of faith
formation for children— the primary
place of faith formation for children. It is the oven in which the bricks of
civilization are cured. Our Holy Father, Pope Francis, and many popes prior to
him have stressed the foundational importance of the family not only to
civilization but also to the transmission of the faith. I don't know why anyone
should be surprised by that last bit—that the family is foundational for faith
formation. And our culture is hell-bent on undermining it. Pope St. Paul VI
predicted in Humanae Vitae that
family life would be profoundly affected if sex and procreation were divorced
from each other, and he was roundly condemned both by western society but also
by many of the theologians of the time. Yet his predictions have all proven
true. And far too many of us let our children be raised in this cultural
village.

It may take
a village to raise a child, but some villages are more sound than others.

Sadly many
of us still act as if faith formation is only the responsibility of the official
Church: that we personally don't need to actively teach the faith to our
children, that we don't personally need to follow the doctrines of the faith
and model devotional life, and that we don't personally need to follow the very
basic requirements of the Church—the precepts
of the Catholic faith.

So as we Baby
Boomers and Gen-Xers—who still happen miraculously to be in these pews—as we attend
mass and watch our children walk out the door, we should be asking ourselves,
have we created a domestic church in our homes? Do we act like we believe what
the Church teaches? Do we try to teach it to our children?

I know this
is difficult in our society, where every attempt to reign in personal choice is
castigated as "oppressive" and "intolerant." But we have
got to be more courageous about our faith. Just look at what is happening in
Iraq and the Middle East, where Christian traditions far older than ours are
being purged by radical militants. Are they privatizing or hiding their faith? Not
all. They are standing for the faith in which they—and we—profess to believe.
The difference is that they are ready
to die for it... and are already dying
for it.

If we do
not create a domestic church at home, our children will go out into a faithless
culture and suck up what is there. Unless we found them on a belief in objective
Christian truth, they will by default fall into a belief in relative truth—which is, in the end, a
belief in nothing.

Do we truly
believe what we espouse here? Do we believe in the transformation that happens
here on our altar—that our God comes to feed us with Himself? Have we created that
domestic church in our homes? Have we created a place for God in the hearts of our
children?

Thursday, December 18, 2014

I noticed a very sudden jump in my blog traffic, which I suspect is related to the broadcast on Salt and Light and EWTN yesterday. Thanks for checking out the blog. Mostly, these days, I post my homilies. However, I do intend to finish up my conversion story. If you're interested in a preview, check out this post from the day of my ordination. It will give you a hint of where I've been.

Sunday, December 14, 2014

This third
Sunday of Advent is called Gaudete Sunday, from the Latin Introit for today's
Mass from Philippians 4. "Rejoice in the Lord always." And also from
the second reading today, which begins, "Semper gaudete." Always
rejoice. We depart from the somber tone of this penitential season for a bit to
celebrate the light that is dawning on us. So we light a rose colored candle
and wear rose colored vestments to celebrate and rejoice in the coming dawn.
Some of our ministers will rejoice a bit less if you tease them about wearing
pink today, so for the record, I will remind you that we are wearing rose
colored garments.

We have
some common themes this week relating to joy and anticipation, but also to a virtue
that many of us don't appreciate enough: humility. The readings for this week are
also fantastic examples of how the old testament prefigures the new, and the
new points back to and interprets the old. Isaiah is the best exemplar of this
tendency, as so much of what we read in Isaiah points forward to Christ. The
first line of today's first reading comes from the mouth of Isaiah, "The
spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me." Isaiah
announces freedom for those who are captive, glad tidings to those who are
poor, and healing for the brokenhearted. The word for anointed in Isaiah is Mashiah, from which we get the word,
Messiah. Isaiah is not speaking, intentionally, of the Messiah, but he
prefigures the coming Messiah, as many others in salvation history prefigured
Christ.

In the
Gospel of Luke, Jesus reads this same passage in His home synagogue to announce
the beginning of His mission. Luke actually quotes the Greek version of this
text, which uses the Greek word for anointed, e' kristen', which is where we
get the word Kristos or Christ. So
Jesus announces His arrival using the words of Isaiah.

Now Isaiah
wasn't particularly popular among his fellow Jews, as no prophet is welcomed in
his home. And Jesus likewise isn't received very well by his neighbors, who
know him as the son of the carpenter and of Mary. There's even something of a
scandal in how that birth came about. But the words of Jesus and Isaiah are not
empty boasting. Each is simply acknowledging their gifts and their role in
God's plan of salvation.

The
Magnificat, our responsorial Psalm today, comes from the infancy narrative in
Luke. Mary rejoices that God has noticed her even in her humble state and that
God lifts up those who are lowly. The Magnificat is another of those canticles
with reverberations in the Old Testament, and it presents a series of contrasts
between the humble and the arrogant.

These readings
share a common theme of humility. Now, I'm not talking about the kind of
groveling humility where one is humiliated, but the true virtue of humility,
which is to see oneself as one truly is. Isaiah recognizes the great honor God
has done to him by anointing him as prophet. He knows he has done nothing to
deserve it other than to be willing to do God's will. He is wrapped in garments
of salvation and a robe of justice. He knows that all he has is from God and to
use for God. That is true humility.

Finally, we
come to John the Baptist, and here we see the contrast between the humble and
the arrogant. A delegation comes from the temple in Jerusalem: priests and Levites
sent by the Pharisees who come to question this man in the desert. Who are you?
What do you have to say for yourself? Can you just picture the haughtiness of
these delegates? Who are you to be out here baptizing people? Are you a
prophet? Are you Elijah? Who are you?

And John
also quotes Isaiah: "I am 'the voice of one crying out in the wilderness,
make straight the way of the Lord' .... Among you stands one whom you do not
know... the thong of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie." He is the
precursor, called by Jesus as "the greatest of all men," but he knows
one thing for certain. He is nothing—NOTHING compared to the God who is to
come.

That is
humility—to know that we are just servants and not truly worthy to serve.

Now,
humility gets short shrift in our culture, and that's largely because it is so
frequently exhibited in false humility: denial of our true gifts, ungraciously
refusing others who compliment us, or pretending to be modest when we're really
not. But we should seek to cultivate true humility. It's not an easy thing to develop,
and sometimes it comes when we least expect it and in ways that often do seem
humiliating.

I remember
when I was in diaconal formation, I was talking to the wife of one of my deacon
mentors, and I mentioned that I had been praying for a deeper sense of
humility. She responded to me, "Are you out of your mind? Oh, you can bet
God will make it happen."

And she was
right. I don't think anything helps us to find out just how flawed we are as
humans as when we seek a vocation.

But
humility is truly necessary for the spiritual life. We need to know that we are
utterly dependent on God. We have these penitential seasons like Advent and
Lent to remind us how much we need God's presence. And we will only truly
recognize our dependence when we see ourselves as we truly are. When we come to
this Eucharist each week, do we recognize that dependence? Do we recognize how
extraordinary it is that God presents Himself to us as our daily sustenance?

Do we see
our dependence in Him in this act of communion?

John's
message in the gospel is for us today in this time of preparation. Make
straight the way of the Lord. How do we do this? We can begin by examining our
consciences and seeing where we fall short. We can get the clutter out of our
lives: set aside all of the distraction, let go of all of the material wants,
and loose ourselves from those things that don't matter. You cannot open your
heart to God if your heart is set on the cares of this world.

Make
straight the way of the Lord. Give Him a straight passageway into your heart.
He can get there anyway, but you can show Him how ready you are by clearing all
the junk, the distractions, and the attachments out of the way, and by opening
your arms and heart to say, I am ready for you, Lord.

Wha?

I am a cradle Catholic who drifted away in my teens and wandered. My search
for truth led me to study comparative religion, New Age nonsense, and
philosophy. After 20 years as an agnostic, I came back to a faith that I never
really knew, but which I learn and love more daily. My restless heart now only
wishes to rest in Him. I have masters degrees in English and theology, black
belts in Shotokan karate (Ohshima) and Shaolin-Do kung fu, and classical
training in music that I've all but forgotten. I am a deacon for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Boise. This is a personal blog and does not represent the official views of my parish or diocese.

Coalition for Clarity

Coalition for Clarity

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